'There's a way out!' she said presently, her colour coming and going. 'I'll go and stay with Margaret in town for a bit. Why should there be any fuss? She's asked me often to help with her war-workroom and the canteen. Father won't mind. He doesn't care in the least what I do! And nobody will think it a bit odd—if you and I don't talk.'
Elizabeth turned away. The touch of scorn in her bearing was not lost on Pamela.
'And if I refuse to stay on, without saying or doing anything—to put myself right—you threaten to run away?'
'I do—I mean it,' said Pamela firmly. She had not only hardened again under the sting of that contempt she detected in Elizabeth, but there was rising up in her a sudden and rapturous vision of London:—Arthur at the War Office—herself on open ground—no longer interfered with and over-shadowed. He would come to see her—take her out, perhaps, sometimes to an exhibition, or for a walk. The suggestion of going to Margaret had been made on the spur of the moment without after-thought. She was now wedded to it, divining in it a hundred possibilities.
At the same moment she became more cautious, and more ashamed of herself. It would be better to apologize. But before she could speak Elizabeth said:
'Does Desmond agree with what you have been saying?'
Pamela staring at her adversary was a little frightened. She rushed into a falsehood.
'Desmond knows nothing about it! I don't want him dragged in.'
Elizabeth's eyes, with their bitter, wounded look; seemed to search the girl's inmost mind. Then she moved away.
'We had better go to bed. We shall both want to think it over. Good-night.'